Campaigners' plea to new owners of Firbeck Hall

The Friends of Firbeck Hall are keen to speak to a developer who is understood to have bought the sprawling Grade II Listed property and its 41-acre grounds for a knock-down £350,000 after an offer was accepted by Leeds-based property consultants GVA Grimley last week.

The sale came nearly 15 years after local developer Glen Saint bought Firbeck Hall—a former country club—for £250,000 before leaving the building and its grounds to rot.

Numerous interested investors have been linked to the property over the past decade but last week’s sale only came after Mr Saint’s hand was forced by the liquidation of his business, Chesterfield-based Cambs Construction.

It is believed that the hall may have been bought by developer Jason Cooper, of Doncaster, who previously led the renovation of Loversall Hall, a 19th century stately home near Doncaster.

This week members of the friends group and Rotherham Borough Council’s conservation department were seeking a meeting with the hall’s new owner.

Simon Drohan, chairman of the friends group, said: “Whoever has bought the hall has become a huge stakeholder in the future of Firbeck and we are very keen to make contact with them.

“Glen Saint was extremely illusive, the hall was shut off from the public and we were never successful in making contact with him, and we wouldn’t want the new owner to be a stranger to us in the same way.

Although we were surprised how quickly the hall was sold after Cambs Construction went into liquidation, we are hopeful that the new owner is aware of the scale of the project.

“We will support almost any development that ensures the renovation of the hall.”

Conservation chiefs at the borough council had been working closely with Mr Saint in the hope that the hall received a series of vital repairs needed to stop it from crumbling and now want to establish a relationship with its new owner.

A spokesman said: “A lot of effort had been put in to ensure the hall’s future and we would not want to see that work undone in the twelfth hour.”

Alex Sweetman, an associate at GVA Grimley, would not confirm the identity of Firbeck Hall’s new owner this week, but said: “It does appear that the hall has been sold at a knock-down price but there is a great deal of work to be done there.

“If the planners turned around and said that you could build on 30 of the grounds’ 40 acres then you could make it a commercially viable proposition, but it’s a listed building in the green belt and, as a result, that is probably unlikely.

“From what I can tell, there are no firm plans for the hall, going forward.”

FACTFILE

Firbeck Hall was once an exclusive country retreat visited by royals and Hollywood stars and featured in the pages of Vogue.

The imposing Edwardian building dates back to the 16th century. Once home to the renowned Staniforth and Gally Knight families, it gained true worldwide renown as the Firbeck Sports and Country Club in the early 1930s.

At the outbreak of the Second World War the house became an annexe of the Sheffield Royal Infirmary and in 1945 it was bought by the Miners' Welfare Commission and turned into a rehabilitation centre for colliers injured at work.

It remained a rehabilitation hospital until its closure in 1984 and was later sold to Glen Saint.